Sunday, 07 December 2008

Short Talk:

Blog Plug of the Day: Andrew Ho's 1morehour.blogspot.com. One of the wittiest blogger to come out from Kuching in a very long time.

"2 weeks ago when UPSR 08 was released, there was this article on the papers that reported about a girl who had cancer and still scored very good result. It was headline news on Borneo Post, Sarawak's exclusive newspaper. A week after that, I read the papers again and saw her reappeared, instead of making headlines, she made it to the classifieds, this time in the obituary."

In two hours time, I will be joined by 16,000 other runners at the starting line at the Esplanade. If all goes well, by 11am I'll hopefully be dragging my sorry ass past the finishing line, wear my new overpriced LV belt as a reward, and hop on that flight back home by Monday night.

Yes. Another year. Another city. Another 42km. :)

Last week when I was in KL, I went shopping for some new running gear at The Gardens in preparation for my race.

I needed new running shorts 'cos I've lost much weight that my old pants were getting too loose for me. I was also looking to get new marathon shoes as the adiZeros I wore for the Borneo half marathon was were beginning to feel a little stiff.

(Disclosure: adidas subsidises part of my sporting gear.)

The adidas outlet in The Gardens has this humungous box labelled born again adidas. There's a hole on top and at the side it reads "FEED ME YOUR OLD SPORTS SHOES AND GET UP TO $50 OFF A NEW PAIR"

For reasons I cannot explain, I stuck my head through the hole.

PHWOAR!

Words cannot describe how much those shoes stink. The collective stench from the bunch of old shoes were so overwhelming, I dieded on the spot.

The staff there looked on helpeless as I croaked and sprawled my lifeless body across the floor, one finger pointing towards my mouth to indicate to them that I needed CPR.

But then I noticed all the staff in the outlet were GUYS. So... *ahem* immediately I woke up.

I heard of this born again adidas thing from Mr Miyagi's blog a few months back and I thought it was a pretty neat campaign they're doing over there in Singapore. Didn't realised they had it in Malaysia as well until I saw the big box.

The idea is to get people to trade in their old sports shoes in return for a RM50 or RM100 discount off a pair of new ones.

The collection bins are located at various adidas outlets throughout KL. It's a nice gesture they're doing. For every twenty pairs collected, they'll donate a new pair to the Harvest Centre, a charity organisation helping out underpriviledged families in Sentul.

It's a win-win situation: you throw away your old sports shoes, they give you discount off your new shoes, some poor kids in Sentul also get new shoes, and you earn yourself some feel-good karma points. ;)

The good thing is, they accept any sports shoes from any brand. Not just adidas, y'know?

For me, I sacrificed this pair of bombastic-coloured bright red Nike Air to the big box. It was in such a bad condition that the air-cushioned bits of the shoes have fallen off and it should be renamed Nike No Air.)

I bought this pair of Nikes almost ten years back, about the time when I started taking up running as a sport. It was the first pair of running shoes I ever bought for myself.

Until that day, I never had the heart to throw it away even with the pathetic state that it was in.

But hey, it's just taking up space in my cupboard anyway.

So like breaking up from a relationship, it's time to let it go and move on.

With the RM50 discount voucher, I got myself this is my pair of blue-coloured adiZero LTs. The price was RM350 after discount, which is still fairly expensive of course, but I know what I'm getting.

These flats are lightweight and built for long distance racing. It's also got a stronger grip on the soles compared to my older pair of adiZeros, which is useful in the likely case that it rains in Singapore - considering it's the monsoon season and all.

Anyway, the most important gear for a marathon is always the shoes, so I ain't gonna compromise on that.

I was taking an exam in Singapore Expo yesterday, which lasted for the whole day. In the afternoon, I started to hear a lot of cheering outside. That's when I knew you guys were out there running your butts off! I hope you made it!

Congrats Kenny for completed the race! Although you missed your target, but you improved 13 mins from your last marathon in Penang, it's already a good achievement. Keep it up, you will achieve your sub 6 soon. Keep us posted when will be your next race ok? Hope to meet you in the race one day.

Mr. Low : Gun time is the time between the official start time (the gun went off) and the time when the runner crosses the finishing line.

Other than recognized elite runners, most runner are behind the starting line at the start time ( imagine 10,000 runners) he/she may take a few minutes before getting to the starting time. This time is registered when the tag worn on the runners crosses the check poins.

I was at the esplanade marathon run..but only for like 5 minutes...was passing by heading towards vivo city...and I took a monday flight back to msia too...haha..seems like we passed by each other twice....

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